By Prof Remi Sonaiya
Education. Noun. 1. The act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life. 2. The process of receiving or giving systematic instruction or of acquiring particular knowledge or skills, as for a profession. 3. An enlightening experience.
I love the concept of “lifelong education” which, if I’m not mistaken, was proposed by the UNESCO at the approach of the 21st century, in recognition of the tremendous challenges engendered by a constantly evolving world and which were bound to fundamentally upset the way in which life had been lived up until then. Anyone who would be more than a mere spectator of global events and developments would have to operate essentially in a learning mode – not the least in terms of keeping up with the fast-paced information and communication technology sector. The 21st century citizen must be predisposed towards learning; yesterday’s skills will not be adequate to meet today’s demands.
Reading, travel, television, and the world of entertainment expose us to worlds whose boundaries extend beyond our immediate realities, and we begin to acquire and accumulate knowledge which, if well digested and processed, contribute in no small measure to our general education. I have had the leisure and opportunity to engage more in these activities in recent times – and consequently, I am beginning to feel somewhat more educated! For example, I just learned barely an hour prior to writing these lines, in a documentary on the tiny country of Bhutan, that its citizens measure their lives by a GNH – Gross National Happiness – Index! The term was coined by a former leader of the nation who believed strongly that the quality of life of a people did not depend solely on the quantity of their material possessions. That is worth reflecting seriously upon, isn’t it, especially by a group of people who have been described as “the happiest people on earth”. I wonder, are Nigerians happier than the Bhutanese? What would be the incontrovertible pieces of evidence upon which judgment could be made one way or the other?
These musings have led me equally to wonder about what is actually being taught in our schools. Could we be focusing more on the second definition of education, as stated above (the one that leads to obtaining a certificate in a particular discipline), without giving due consideration to the first and, in my opinion, more important definition? On a recent international flight I was struck by the number of Nigerians who travel abroad but have no idea how things function inside an airplane. The young man who used the toilet before me did not flush it, and I wondered whether he even bothered to look around to find the flush button, in case that was his first time in an airplane. There were several students from a particular secondary school on that same flight; what was the preparation given to them for that trip?
There are several skills that are necessary for effective navigation in our globalised world, and one which we have not sufficiently integrated into our education system is that of observation. I mean, we must teach people to look at their surroundings in a deliberate manner, in order to gather information which would lead to awareness. Let me attempt to illustrate. I was once at a conference in Abuja and went to the toilet, where I found three young ladies changing their clothes and putting on T-shirts which had come in plastic packaging. Apparently, they were going to be the hostesses for the event. I could not believe my eyes when, one after the other, these ladies took out their T-shirts and simply let the plastic wrappings fall on the floor. Meanwhile, there was a dustbin right under the wash basin! They did not look for it; did they expect that one would be there? What kind of education have these girls received (and they were obviously students at tertiary institutions), and yet were unable to look for a dustbin in the toilet of an international conference centre?
There is no doubt that the realities in which many of us live are still so rudimentary; but we must endeavour that our education system equips our children with a general knowledge about how the world is organised and how things function at the global level. One of the goals of education is to lift people beyond their current realities and grant them access to worlds hitherto unknown. Were we not taught in our secondary schools way back then how to properly wield our fork and knife and maintain general etiquette at table, such that even the student from the remotest village soon felt confident among his or her peers? One of the basics of education is to learn to observe the conduct of those around you.
To some, education leads to alienation. Their belief is that the acquisition of “foreign” ideas and ways of doing things erodes the individual’s identity and makes him or her lose authenticity. I could not disagree more. Education, rightly considered, is actually an enrichment of the individual’s life, an enlargement of the borders of the mind, be it through the acquisition of a foreign language, the reading of a good book, or just every single detail of the experience that takes one from Calabar to Dubai and back.